Search News

Minister of National Education Nabi Avcı answered questions concerning recent issues at the News Room Program aired live at the TRT news channel.

23.12.2015 13:01

Here are the highlights of Minister of National Education Nabi Avcı’s statements:

Appointment of all applicants to the disabled teacher positions

“We have announced that we would employ 150 disabled teachers in our Ministry. We had 150 vacant positions but number of applications reached 203. We decided to employ all applicants.”

Remedial courses at schools affected due to terror activities

“Government has declared curfew at Şırnak, Cizre and Silopi. Due to this reason, schools at these districts are in recess. Total of 80 thousand 156 students, 42.850 of them being in Cizre and 37.306 in Silopi are unable to go to school. We are planning to hold remedial courses. According to the Law on National Education, we are obliged to provide 180 work day education and training to children at schools every year. We are going to compensate the loss period according to the differing conditions of every district.”

Teachers will return to duty after Turkey secures the peace

“None of our teachers wanted to leave their schools but the Ministry had asked them to come to the center to receive in service training. Teachers will return to their duty after the establishment of security in the region and all of our teachers are eagerly waiting for this. We made this decision based on the information we have received concerning that terrorists were planning to attack schools and use students as human shields.”

“I want to give an example; schools were on one day recess in Los Angeles after police received a tip of a possible attack from an e-mail message. There were many attacks against schools in the southeastern region. These attacks aim at hurting the people of the region and this terrorist organization has been oppressing the people of the region. I want to thank all our law enforcement officers in the region as well as teachers who are working there making great sacrifices.”

Teacher appointments

“As I announced before in various different occasions, we will appoint 30 thousand teachers in February. I want to repeat once more that appointments to state positions are done according to the law and upon the permission of Ministry of Finance.”

“The newly appointed teachers shall begin receiving salaries in March and start working in their new place of duty. Every newly appointed teacher shall have an advisor teacher who has minimum ten year experience in the duty. New teachers shall have the opportunity to see experienced teachers in class and his relations with other teachers. New teachers shall also see how provincial and district directorates of national education works. “

Cooperation with YÖK

“We have cooperation with the Council of Higher Education. Teacher formation program is an earned right. After graduating from universities, those who are willing to become teachers attend formation programs and enter Public Personel Selection Examination. This is how people are becoming eligible for teacher appointments.”

Regulation allowing university professors to work until they are 75

“There was a regulation that was adopted in order to overcome the lack of sufficient academicians in the newly founded state universities in different cities of Anatolia. This regulation allowed university professors to work until they are 72 while normal retirement age of state university students was set as 87. We have submitted a draft to the Parliament in order to renew this regulation and increase the age limit to 75.”

There was a misconception that the education system changes with every newly appointed Minister of National Education. This is totally wrong. Moreover, there were not many changes in the last 13 years. “

“EIN dismisses the need of supplementary books”

“Education Information Network or publicly known as EIN is the most important component of the FATİH Project. It is believed that FATİH is a software project but it is a project that does not only distribute tablets and computers, it is also about content.

EIN is a giant platform including more than 150 thousand supplementary educational materials and sample tests and homework. It is developed by the experts and teachers of the Ministry of National Education. Students and teachers have their own password and they can enter the portal via their own computers or tablets that we distributed.

EIN: A giant education institution without walls

“Some media organizations claimed that the Minister of National Education admitted that Turkey’s education remains from the 19th century and it needs reformatting. I did not use these words not only to describe Turkish education, I was talking about an education philosophy. EIN is a giant education institution that has no walls. Every student and teacher can freely enter this portal. There are new education technologies, approaches and methods and as the Ministry of National Education, we are determined to use all these for the benefit of our teachers and students.”